Subject: RE: Artists' personal lives-public latitude
From: M.Ted
Date: 16 Nov 08 - 12:24 AM
There is a view that Mr. MacIsaac is simply pursuing the "any publicity is good publicity" idea, also known as "The Spears/ Lohan Principle".
........His problem is that "bad girl" headlines and cover photos sell
........ "bad boys" don't get written up anymore unless they buy the farm. ........forget about "rapping", ranting/pop fusion music/
flashing privates, focus on trad. music that he knows and does best. Apparently, even here at Mudcat, that is a minority view;-)

That is one perspective, that any publicity is good publicity.
However, with Lohan for example, last year she was skipping out on
scheduled filmings which delayed at least one of her movies, and she
also had five consecutive movies that flopped at the box office.
(Including that one, I think it was "I Know Who Killed Me"). This
was going on while she was on her way to rehab, and cameras were getting shots of her burnt out on hard drugs.

It depends on the type of bad publicity. If it is chronic drug and
alcohol related use, and the ratings are showing that the persons
work is not selling as well as they used to, then it could have
something to do with the quality of their performance. The drugs are
influencing them not to perform well, and turns off the audience.

The performer has a drug problem, and it's not yet publicized:
If the audience doesn't know they're using drugs at first, they might think the performer is having a rough patch, or is burning out; then
once the drug-use publicity starts, they'll start to wonder if they
can rely on the performer enough in the future that there will be a
good performance. Maybe they'll really start to think that the artist
is burning out, and that drugs are just an excuse to cover up the
bad performances.
If they are using drugs, and it doesn't effect their performance
in a negative way, then it could be good publicity; if they publicize
a picture of the artist snorting a line of crack on city billboards,
and posting photos in magazines of them at parties taking dexedrine
and mixing it in their martini, or taking lots of LSD.



I think that he should stick with his traditional style of music, but
he could incorporate a bit of other styles (just some), to help make
the traditional music appealing to other audiences.
Perhaps, an alternative/rock style to the traditional music like
the Barenaked Ladies, or a good rapper like Snoop Dogg. Just one
track of each in a fourteen/fifteen track album. Maybe a country-blues
type song incorporated with one song, and the rest be Celtic music.
Then when those other audiences start buying his music, they might
like his Celtic music too, and want to hear more of his traditional
songs.
That's somewhat a good path to make a comeback. Mainly your style,
but with a small sampling of variety (in good taste).